Squad Goals

Suicide Squad! The movie that I fervently hoped would inject some much needed life, humour and a whole lotta bad bad into the DC cinematic universe.  As is my usual practice I had avoided all trailers, and anything else to do with the movie. Going in, I didn’t know the premise, and I barely knew anything about the casting other than the unavoidable few.

It starts with some promise – I liked the opening credits. Sadly, this was when the movie peaked.  

I initially meant to write a proper recap. But I didn’t take notes the first time and I just can’t bring myself to watch it again. So instead, here’s a brief list of observation.

1. Viola Davis reprises her role from How to Get Away With Murder as woman with less and less fucks to give each day who gathers together a bunch of unruly kids to help her solve her problems.
2. The first twenty minutes of the movie is spent on exposition as we are introduced to each of the villains she plans to recruit.
3. As any sane person would expect, the whole ‘death squad of super villains to combat threats from super villains’ plan goes awry even before it gets off the ground when one of its members goes rogue and starts being the threat.
4. After being bombarded for what feels like forever with teasers of Jared’s Leto’s Joker, we find that
   a) he has very little screen time
   b) we wish he had even less
5. Viola Davis as Amanda Waller wouldn’t have been my first choice. But then, they never get Waller right in the live action shows. TVs Arrow gave us an absurdly hot version and here, we have a way too serious version.  You know who would have made a good Waller? The lady who plays Ethal Peobody in Gotham. 
6. What the hell was going on with the soundtrack? Was the director so lazy that he tried to let the music do half the work for him? If that was the case, he failed spectacularly. The soundrack is a bigger mess than Killer Croc's genetic composition. Eminem’s Without Me? Really? That song is just about Eminem! It can’t possibly be used by or for anyone else!
7. The done to death trope of getting the main villain (who has the power to destroy cities - or in this case a satellite in space- from a distance) to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the main band of opposers, thus allowing themselves to be defeated? Sheesh.  

I wanted so much to like this movie. So many amazing characters, so many awesome stories to tap, and this is what they decided to go with? What a waste.

Giniyam Rae – a painfull recap

(if you want to watch the video behind the recap - and I assure you, you  don't - click here.) 

Our story starts with a flash sequence of images, including, but not limited to; the sunrise, various flora (but surprisingly no fauna), a jungle trail, a guy alone in tent looking rather woebegone, the same guy attired in questionable hiking gear following the aforementioned trail,  and a woman clad in a purple swathing thing writhing near a stream. 

Okay, Purple Woman just started singing. I can’t make out all the words – nor do I want to – I just wish it would stop. 

Hiking Guy meanwhile, is consulting a map (or a printout that was dipped in tea) and stumbling through the forest. 

Plot twist! There appears to be another irrationally clad explorer in the vicinity. She is also consulting a map, which looks suspiciously similar to the one hiking guy was holding. Maybe they were selling them at the hotel gift shop. 

Meanwhile, Purple Woman is still singing. There are many exclamations of ‘oh-oh, oh-oh-oh’. And at one point I swear she said ‘shin guard-ta haadu deela’; which sounds like an extremely unhygienic thing to do. 

Hiking Man looks up – does he hear her? Nope. He’s just blundering about, pausing at moments to look wistfully upwards and doing his best not to drive the plot forward.  

Purple Woman now claims that ‘nethwal amunala’. This sounds like a painful medical condition and perhaps she should make her way back into civilization and consult a doctor. 

Iraj pops in at this point in a cloud of smoke to inform us, that it’s (a ) a giniyam rae -  although everything that preceded his appearance occurred in broad daylight and (b) nima wen nae – which sounds rather improbable. 

I’m going to ignore the lyrics from this point onwards because it’s clear that they don’t follow a cohesive pattern. We now take a break from Iraj and Purple Woman to check up on Hiking Guy. Hiking Guy has clearly not watched Nat Geo or Discovery or even Sesame Street, since he has no idea how to drink water from a stream. Instead of cupping it in his hands like a normal person, he bends down and drinks like an animal. Even Mowgli, who was raised by wolves for heaven’s sake, had a better system in place to stay hydrated. For shame Hiking Guy, for shame. 

He walks on, consulting his map and comes to another stream. Or a different part of the same stream. I don’t know. Do you even care? This time he takes off his shoes and wades in. he reaches into the water and bring out a  - is it a fish? Is it a fish? Please tell me it’s a fish! Nope. It’s a tiny box shaped like a miniature treasure chest. A wooden one, that’s been in water and is not even waterlogged. In fact, it looks freshly varnished. Also, please note there are no markings or anything in the surrounding area that he could have followed to get to it. The box appears to be filled with gemstones. Cringe. 

Iraj is back, with his foretelling of the never-ending flaming night. He’s joined this time by someone in a floral shirt. Floral Shirt Guy is just bouncing round, not really contributing at this point.

Now we get back to focusing big time on Irrationally Clad Explorer Girl. She’s tied a strip of cloth round her thigh and stuck her map in it. Which is probably the best place for it because her clothing doesn’t offer much room to stash anything in. she’s really very poorly equipped for a foray into the jungle - she isn’t even carrying a bottle of water. But with the number of streams and water holes littering this place I guess it won’t really be a problem. 

A quick flashy-flashy sequence of Iraj, Camofluaged Hiking Guy, Purple Woman and we switch back to Irrationally Clad Explorer Girl, now in a bikini, jumping into some sort of deep pool of water.

Cut to Hiking Guy, who turns, probably at the sound of the splash. He makes his way towards the noise. Wait, what’s this! A new entrant to the story! A red haired woman clad in a pink bikini, is diving into the same pool of water Irrationally Clad Explorer Girl is floundering round in. Where did she come from? It’s definitely not singing purple woman – she was blond. 

Guy In Floral Shirt appears, rapping now. Did he just say “dan full happening magey apaaya?”. Surely not. 

Irrationally Clad Explorer Girl and Pink Bikini are getting all friendly like now. They proceed to take their tops off and check each other for leeches, or engage in some mutual back scratching, I can’t really tell. Hiking Guy, who witnesses this episode of female camaraderie, is pleased. 

And now we cut to what seems to be a beach party. This surely is an area overrun with bodies of water. Everyone from our story is here, plus some extras (or Iraj’s drinking buddies). This appears to be the Giniyam Rae that Iraj so jubilantly foretold. 

Hiking Guy is not waiting round any longer. He quickly gets both Irrationally Clad Explorer Girl and Pink Bikini to join him in his tent (the same tent he was moping in at the beginning of the story – now granted a starring role in our narrative). There’s some hazy backlit shadowy making out in the confines of that tiny tent. Seriously, it’s a very small tent. Like those tents people sell on the pavement. I don’t know how they all fit in there. 

And now it’s morning. Clearly, Iraj was just having us on with the ‘nima wen nae’ part of his prophecy. Hiking Man wakes up shirtless and opens his ‘treasure chest’ to find it empty.  Overcome, (by shame and embarrassment I guess, for appearing in this video) he grimaces and claps his hand to his forehead, adopting the classic ‘ayyo’ stance. 

And thus, the story comes to an end. If there is a moral to the story it would be: upon finding rare gemstones in an unmarked location, proceed immediately to the Sri Lanka Gem & Jewellery Exchange instead of mucking about at beach parties and such.

Those Left Behind

Walking into work was hard today. Funny thing is, I didn't expect it to be - I didn't arrive at work thinking this is going to be hard. You wouldn't expect a particular day to have such a tangible effect. But turns out it does. Walking up the path to HQ, all I could think of was the first day he brought me in for my interview. Walked up the same frickin' path didn't we. Then the elevators and his comment about the traffic lights (the elevator doors in our building are coloured green, yellow and red on the three floors). We used to steal a kiss in the elevator sometimes; not the glass one, obviously, but the one leading up from the creche, on our way after dropping off sproglet.
I realised that I had unconsciously started a ritual; both this year and the last, around this time, I started reading his blog. I remember the night he died, desperate searching for it online, scared to death that it would be missing because he hadn't been active for some time. But it was all there and still is. I have mirrored it though, just to be safe. There's a note to the kiddo that she has to see someday  - I don't know whether she's ready yet. Or perhaps I'm not. Her tears about her dad are the ones that sear me the most.

This was a good year, you would have liked it.

You're missing the world bunny, and it breaks my heart.

Kidhood

The kiddo had a pretty bad experience in school a few days ago. It was one of those things that I couldn't fix for her; all I could do was hug her tight, talk it through, and to her and tell her to soldier on. And I know that there will be many more instances where she will have to face a situation where she has to deal with it on her own. I will be a helpless bystander, able to offer sympathy and support and not much else. For a mother, who's natural instinct is to go into fiercely protective mummy bear mode if she's hurt, that's hard to accept.

Life can be very cruel to a child if they make the wrong choices or pick the wrong friends. But what do kids know about choices? From what I remember, we mostly blindly follow our peers or try to emulate those that stand out. My parents never interfered much when it came to school stuff. At the time I was grateful for it, but I wish now that I had had a better understanding of how the rest of your life can be shaped by one event, one decision. Those days we had no one to tell us these things. No one acknowleged feelings back then. Oh we were loved, we knew that with certainity, but it was in a practical, absolutely intangible way. If someone had told me back then even half the things I tell my kid now, I might have turned out to be a completely different person. I probably wouldn't have stumbled around for a good portion of my early years enveloped in self doubt and insecurity.

Mind you, in a way I'm glad things went the way they did - because everything is pretty spiffy in the now. 

Quit Pro Quo

Four years. Man, that's something to be proud of, right? If I could do this, I can do anything. Dealing with an addiction is about the hardest thing  - they can overshadow real life because you prioritize everything else around it. Some people laugh at the fact that smoking is considered an addiction - but that's because they don't know how far smokers (addicts - not social smokers) would go for a hit. It's not that obvious  as with other, more lethal addictions, but trust me, every smoker has a story to tell.

When I quit smoking, i did it cold cold turkey, and I did it alone. But that doesn't mean I didn't have to get some sort of help and I went out, did the research and made sure I got what I needed. i joined an online forum, started a diary to track my progress - went the whole hog. 

Just to get an idea of what the day to day was like, here are some excerpts from my diary: from back then: 

January 17, 2012

So here I am, third attempt at quitting smoking. I’m almost afraid to type out the words, afraid that I will jinx it. but from past experience I know that what I do is based solely on my will and goddammit this time I will not cave. My first attempt was about four years ago. I had recently gotten married, my husband decided to quit so I though I’d join him. I’d been a loner for most of life and I think I first started smoking because it was something to do, it was like a bad boy that kept me company. But now, I thought I wasn’t alone so maybe I could do it. Well, attempt one lasted a day. No more.

Attempt two was a few months back. I was dating a non-smoker and he was trying to convince me to stop. I knew he hated when I smelt of smoke, and he actually asked me to not smoke on the days I was to meet him. And so once I started doing that it became quite a nuisance. When the first thought you have on waking is "oh, today I can’t smoke"  - that isn’t the most relaxing thought. So after a few weeks of pent up frustration I thought to hell with this, smoked my last cigarette before bed, hid my ashtray and lighter and went to sleep. I stayed quit for a week and a half. Then my boyfriend had to go out of the country for four days, my insecurities kicked in, and two days after he left, I was smoking again. But I came away from the experience with one important thing ; my smoke free time was the best one and a half weeks I have had in a long long time. I felt confident, I didn’t feel embarrassed to be around people, I felt clean and most of all was busting with pride. I want that feeling back. Hence attempt number three.

I smoked my last cigarette this morning. (I was hoping to get a clean start by finishing them last night but I had too many). I suppose I could have not smoked it, but that was asking for too much. My one fear is the supermarket. It is the hardest thing ever to walk out of a supermarket without asking for a pack of smokes at the checkout. That’s where I usually cave. So for the next few weeks I shall studiously be avoiding supermarkets. I wish I had someone to support me in this, someone who would do a supermarket run for me, but I don’t. And somehow doing it alone has always worked for me. Sharing this makes the pressure greater so I will keep mum till I at least make it two weeks this time.

 Here’s hoping…

Friday 20th January 2012- Day 3
Made it from Tuesday to Friday without mishap. I came upon a couple of blogs that helped me along. Somehow reading up on someone else's experiences, reading about their slip ups and most of all the way that they understand exactly what you're going through was enlightening. I also downloaded Allen Carr's The Easy Way to Stop Smoking and read it in one day. It's all very illuminating, this reading other people's stories thing. It makes you realise exactly what it was in cigarettes that kept you hooked, what exactly it is that you don't need and how to stay quit. One of the most important insights I got from the book is that quitting smoking shouldn't be referred to as "giving up" smoking. because essentially, you're really not giving up anything. There's nothing that you're losing or "giving up". Think of it as stopping. Stopping something that's holding you back, slowly turning you into a social pariah, making you sick, making you nervous and edgy and stressed, making the lives of everyone around you miserable because all you can think of is how to engineer your next smoke break; all that stops. So you're not giving up anything, you're actually getting something back by stopping smoking. So I thought I'd make a list of everything I've got back over the last three days.

1. Free time - since I'm not engineering those around me and my own schedule around my smoking habit, I have more free time.
2. Exercise - I've been going to gym after dropping of Abby at school since yesterday. I feel fit, happy and hungry  - or at least one of those things at a given time.
3. Taste - everything tastes better. I thought that was just one of those things people said but it's actually true.
4. Waking up blues - I no longer wake up feeling sludgy. my eyes don't need to be pried open and I actually wake up feeling weirdly cheerful. Probably because I'm not stressing about my early morning smoke.
5. Snacks - unlimited snacks. I realise I might gain weight but I AM regularly going to the gym and also, I don't have huge meals - just tiny snacks throughout.
6. Ice cream - chocolates and ice cream were two loves I didn't need when i smoked. Somehow that ashy taste in your mouth doesn't make you crave sweet stuff. But now, bring em on!

I'm sure I can add to the list as I progress. I'm not saying I'm not tempted to smoke, I am. Many many times throughout the day. But when the urge hits and my brain says "c'mon just one. what's the harm?" I tell myself "rubbish, you don't need cigarettes" and I have a drink of water and dive into a book. Keeping myself occupied is a must. There are moments - especially after a hot curry when the craving for a cigarette is intense. But so far I have persevered. I have even made it through TWO supermarket runs without succumbing!

24th January - Day 7
Day seven and counting. I'm not going to say it's been a breeze, but at the same time it hasn't been hard either. The only "difficult" thing to do is to nudge away that nagging voice that says "c'mon, what harm can one cigarette do?". The one thing that bothers me (if that's the word I'm looking for) is the feeling of "what do I do now?". Especially after a meal I am overcome by this feeling of aimlessness. I have been tempted so many times during the course of a day to just throw in the towel and grab me a cigarette. but then i remind myself that it's only that first puff that I crave. and in truth that first puff will make me smile, will make me feel happy and will make me think 'this is what life's all about'. but then the second, third puff isn't so great. By the sixth you're wishing the damn cigarette was shorter. I remind myself of this, and then I make it through the craving. This time, I'm not doing it for anyone but myself. so I guess that makes it easier to stay on track. Every extra minute that I spend playing with Abby, every extra smile that I can give her, every time I hold her without wondering whether I smell bad to her, bliss.

25th January 2012 - Day 8
So yesterday I made the mistake of telling my best friend that I'd been smoke free for 7 days. I had actually been debating whether to tell her or not. Even last time, I never told anyone till I was about 5 days into it. This time there's more pressure if I tell people because they know I failed last time. So anyway, her response was along the lines of 'oh yeah? didn't we get here before?" and for a while I was totally disheartened. But then I picked myself back up, used that as fuel for my motivation.
So the downside to quitting smoking seems to be weight gain. The first few days I ate anything and everything I could get my hands on, and now it shows! I've gotten extremely rotund in the midsection and it's not a pleasant feeling. So from today I'm hitting a new eating regiment. More salads and protein and less sweets and fatty stuff. Also, I finally started getting my lazy ass off to the gym in the mornings after dropping Abby off at school. It's actually working out great because I get in to work an hour before anyone else so I have time to hit the gym and shower just in time to meet everyone else at breakfast.

23rd January 2014 - 2 years
Two years. Didn't ever think I'd make it a month let alone make it this far. I guess the real secret to quitting anything is to do it for yourself. A good friend told me that the anniversary of the day I quit smoking is more important than my birthday and I think he was right.

 So there it is. Looking back I seems to have stopped writing by day 8. I guess that first week was the biggest hurdle i needed to get over.

Magic Mike XXL (or how to use a nail gun in seven different ways)

so this gust of wind suddenly blew our shirts off...

I rarely write movie recaps or reviews. But what Channing Tatum does with basic household furniture should be documented for posterity.
The predecessor to Magic Mike XXL - simply titled Magic Mike  - actually had the semblance of a story. At the very base of it was your standard boy-meets-girl, they fight, they make up, rom-com formula - albeit with a lot of stripping thrown in. This time around, XXL throws off any pretenses and simply focuses on what we came here for in the first place - a hoard of finely tuned bodies getting their groove on and their clothes off.
The plot, if it can be called that, is simple. there's a strippers convention and the boys have gathered together to go on a road trip to the convention for one last hurrah. Along the way, there are the obligatory altercations, accidents and what-have-yous. But fortunately, there's nothing that can't be resolved with a little bit of, you guessed it, stripping!
The final part of the movie focuses on the act they put together for the convention. If the movie has any sort of 'this is what we're learning today kids' aspect to it it's that we should be true to ourselves. Something that Mike teaches the rest of the boys by way of getting them to ditch the old routines and come up with acts that are more personalised. This plan works out better for some (Dick) than others (Tito).
If you know Magic Mike, you already know what you're in for. XXL actually is bigger  - bigger cast, bigger acts and bigger damage to women's spinal cords (seriously, these women get thrown about a lot).  All I know is, after watching it, I'll never look at a chair the same way again.

Mortality Combat

No matter how it happens, whether it's sudden or long drawn out, expected or unexpected, death just fucking sucks. It just does. For the person who is dead as well as the people left behind. You can't say 'oh but he's better off now'. Like fuck he is. He’s dead. How can he be better off? He’s missing out on everything. He’s ashes. He's dust. That can't be fun. Oh sure, living the way he was wasn’t much good, so if that's what you're comparing death to then hell yes, this ending is better. But why did any of it have to happen anyway. All of it just blows. 

'Time will heal' is something you're bound to hear, many many times. Time doesn't motherfucking heal anything. Time, if at all, accentuates your loss because every single day you come across another new thing that isn't the same because this person died. What does happen is - you get used to doing without his presence. You get used to managing with other people. You manage. You never heal. You just learn to go on as if this gaping wound in your side doesn't bother you anymore. A bit like Henry VIII - without the serial marriages and spousicide. 

Next up we have 'the good die young'. Really? They do? Does kindness kill? How does that make any sense? Not everyone who has an untimely death is inherently good - this theory is hogwash.

Death, or rather, the post-death phase directly affects those left behind. And there are myriad ways in which people handle these situations. For me, personally, it’s the thought of the dead missing out on the rest of their lives and the lives they cared about that really gets to me. The fact that everything that comes after, they couldn’t experience. And these thoughts come unbidden, at the strangest moments. Anything can trigger them; from milestones in your child’s life to that moment where Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance on Eureka (which you started watching now because you remembered that he used to watch it on TV but you never got into it at the time).

Death sucks. Life after death sucks harder.

Potter not

When talking about books and kids and what our kids are reading, something that usually comes up is whether my particular offspring likes/reads Harry Potter. My answer is always 'she hasn't read them yet' - an answer that is usually met with surprise. The reason is pretty simple; I don't want to let Harry Potter into her life before she has had the chance to read better books. I have written about my issues with the series before  and  more able writers than me have explained why the books aren't the bees knees despite what most Potter-heads would have you believe.
It's not that I would ever stop her from reading them - I'd just rather delay it as much as I can. Just as I would put off getting a root canal for as long as I possibly could. (how can you compare reading Harry Potter to a root canal, you ask? They both cause me twinges of pain and go on for far longer than they should.)
I don't have anything against JKR - I just think that the blessed woman can't write very well and I think the hype surrounding her books is a tad undeserved. (That's not her fault, it's the fault of the people who lined up to buy them.) For me, her books are simply 'just okay'. I read the first book when a friend of mine started going on and on about it. A few pages into the book I was thinking  "well this isn't all that great, but now that I started it I may as well finish it'. And this was before pottermania was well on the way - so I had no preconceived notions about the book. If you had grown up reading fantasy and mind you, I'm adding Enid Blyton to the mix here (anyone who has read the Faraway Tree series would be going 'hey now, that sounds familiar' when reading about the magical sweets those Weasley twins conjure up) I don't think the Harry Potter series would offer up anything as amazing as Potter-heads would have you believe. More than the story itself, the writing - that's what really got to me. The sentences are poorly structured, nothing happens for chapters on end just because each book has to be longer than the one preceding - I'm surprised that at least one of the books weren't titled Harry Potter and the Unnecessary Sequel.

Then there is this villain - the poor sod is called He Who Must Not Be Named. That's quite a mouthful isn't it? (You can't help feeling that at some point someone meekly asked "wouldn't it be easier to call him Bob?"). It's not like the name itself has any power - like Beetlejuice. And that's the essence of what gets to me about all these books. they're all so needlessly convoluted. Stuff just happens sometimes just because JKR wants it to happen - when she killed off Sirius Black (oh, sorry, spoiler alert)  - what the heck was that? Even the red wedding, as ghastly as it was, made sense. You don't just kill off a main character just because 'oh wait, so I need this to happen on the next book so ...bye bye then'. Oh and the woman really knows how to ride a deus ex machina, bless her soul.
Another thing that bugs me is when I tell people that I don't like HP, their immediate response is "oh, so you probably like Lord of the Rings then". Well, no, Those are not the only fantasy series in existence. Besides, as much as I love them, the LOTR books are not what I would choose if I wanted an easy read. There are more books in the world people. A LOT more.
If I wanted to introduce a child to a world of magic - honestly, I'd start with Enid Blyton. Okay so she tends to get a bit repetitive, but if you wrote that many books you'd be wont to reuse a plot element here and there I bet. For slightly slightly older kids you have C S Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, Philip Pullman, look I can't list them all here. Suffice to say that there's a fairly large supply of easy to read fantasy books with a strong story, and excellent worlds and characters.
The point of my whole rant is - pretty much what I said before. When it comes to reading, I'd rather any child of mine start off by knowing what good writing is. After that, a little bit of gunk here and there can't mess up the cogs.

The Walking Bread

I’ve turned into a Walker. A lumbering beast that follows a pack, aimlessly straggling down a marked course with only one mission: get to the end of it, and then turn around and walk back again.

Okay so it’s not as dramatic as all that.  But I have, sad to say, resorted to walking since I simply can’t muster up the motivation to engage in any other form of exercise at the moment. And this is not normal for me as those who know me well (about 2 people) will attest. But the truth is, my motivation to work out fluctuates. For the last few years it’s been a cycle of:

1. Gain weight
2. Get horrified by the weight gain
3. Frantically research new training schedules  
4. Get myself to the gym regularly and even (gasp!) do cardio
5. Eat better
6. Lose the weight
7. Feel fantastic
8. Get complacent
9. Skip a workout now and then because I think I can ‘get away with it’
10. Stop working out for a few weeks because<random excuse>
11. Start eating junk because I’m sad that I’m not working out
12. Gain weight
13. Go back to 2

I have now reached a new low where I can’t even get back to 2. For the last few months I have been stuck in a vicious loop of 11 to 13. So great is my shame that walking actually feels like a step up. “You’re doing fine.” I tell myself as I trudge along. “Look at you walking! You’re moving your body from one place to another with your legs! You’re awesome!”

These days I’m actually using a designated ‘walking area’. It’s nice because you don’t have to dodge traffic but it’s also a bit sad – seeing as about ninety percent of the people on it are senior citizens. The rest of them consist of:

• Two serious runners
• Three power walkers - you know how Pheboe runs? Well these people walk like that
• One headscarf wearing man
• One woman wearing a serviette on her head. I’m not kidding. Remember that kind of checked serviettes that your uncle who was a government clerk used to carry in his briefcase? That type of serviette.  (Okay fine, so it was my uncle who was the government clerk but you get the point.)
• One guy in sandals – who probably got lost on his way to the bus stop
• One guy walks with his head tilted like an actual zombie (why do zombies do that?)
• Me

Despite these deterrents, I have been persevering – for exactly three days. And I’m writing this because: 

1.  I wanted to use The Walking Bread in a title so very badly.
2. I’m actually kinda sorta proud of myself for doing something other than going back to sleep after getting the offspring to the school bus.
3. Using lists makes this look longer than it actually is so I can pretend I wrote something worthy.

The one good thing about these walks is that when the zombie apocalypse finally comes, and my car runs out of petrol during my escape, I will be able to walk miles and miles till I find a replacement vehicle – provided of course that it’s only 3.5 kilometers away.

Get your very own Walking Bread t-shirt! Order now!

"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."

When I was small I wanted to marry someone called John. This was mainly because I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to communicate properly with someone who didn’t speak English and John seemed like a safe bet. I also made myself a promise that I would never marry someone with Perera as the surname (I had an uncle with that surname who used to tease me a lot – and I thought all Pereras were related to him). I was quite happy with my well laid plans; it seemed quite unlikely that a John Perera would ever come into my life after all.

So what did I grow up and do? I married Shane Perera of course.

Being married was hard; being married was wonderful; being married to you, it opened me up to a whole new world of experiences, and made me into a bigger better person. It gave me the capacity to love strongly, and more importantly, to be able to express that love openly. For a shy girl who earlier couldn’t even utter a simple ‘I love you’ without tying myself in knots – that was a major freakin’ deal.

It didn’t last, but so what; that doesn’t take away what was. What it made me be. And no matter what form of love mine has evolved to, it’s there and it always will be. You opened up a side of yourself to me that quite possibly only one other person in the world has ever seen. One of the things that make my insides wrench is that Abbster won’t ever get to see you as I saw you. But she has so much of you in her. She makes me stop in my tracks when she mimics a mannerism or even says something that’s just so you. With her, I don’t know where I end and you begin and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Guardians of the Galaxy is coming out soon. And you’re not going to get to see it, are you. It’s funny, how things like that are what get to me the most. I’m sorry that the last thing you watched in the X-Men franchise was the shitty Wolverine movie and that you totally missed Days of Future Past.

For a while there babe, we had the most amazing ride. I suppose to have had even a short amount of indescribable happiness is better than a lifetime of banality. I’ll forever be grateful that the last moment we shared was when I hugged you goodbye so tightly I made your glasses smudge. You made that ‘tsk tsk’ face and I cleaned them up. Let’s call this that last hug anniversary; that sounds better than any other name I can think of. 

Spicy Wombat Balls - among other things

Here are a list of clichés:

I miss you more than words can say

My heart is broken

You left me broken-hearted

I think about you all the time

Not a day goes by that I don't think about you

I'll never be the same again

Everyday I miss you more

Thing is, they're all true.
I miss you bunny love. Wherever you are, I hope things run on Linux.

Much ado About Nothing

As of late i have been inspired by - well, absolutely nothing. Nada /zilch/zero/the amount of awesome in a Michael Bay movie. What to write when you're not inspired? Well, one could just randomly start typing in the hope the something would crawl its out of the keyboard. Not that I'm going to admit to doing that now.

Oh! I bought a tablet. Let's talk about that.

It's an Acer Iconia A 830 slab of pure awesomeness. My primary requirement from a tablet was for it to function properly as a comic book reader. I love comics but living in the third world means that no one except for the filthy rich can support a comic book habit. So us lower life forms are compelled to read e-comics obtained by stealthy means. I previously had a Kindle - which sucked demon eyeballs. Not only is reading comics on a monochrome display a barbaric practice, the Kindle is so small that you have to zoom in on panels to read them. Needless to say that experiment was never repeated. I grew weary of the Kindle as an e-book reader as well - it was so unfeeling - reading a book off this cold lifeless device. For some reason reading books off the Acer is a much more enjoyable experience. It took me a while to get used to the whole 'thou shalt install apps' aspect of it. but once I had my readers up and running the comics displayed like a dream. It's a 7.99 display so a single page fits perfectly and is superbly readable. I'm glad I didn't go for the ipad (a choice I was considering because of the size) because the 'droid is way more flexible; I don't approve of Apple's prohibitive nature anyway.

 I really hope the Acer doesn't go the way of the Kindle and get retired to a cupboard after a few months (my Kindle committed suicide in retaliation). But I somehow doubt it will. I have a feeling it's going to stay shiny. :)

Genesis - or something like it

At first there was nothingness and then there was light

and then there were creatures of mien and might.

God made Adam and from his rib, made Eve

and Adam said thoughtfully, "but Lord, where’s Steve?."

A wily old serpent who slithered and spun

A tale so tempting of apples that were ‘yum’

and coerced poor Eve, who dimwittedly agreed

to eat from the fruit which grew on yonder tree.

God said with a frown ‘what’s the one thing I said?"

"Eat not the apples, but dine on that bread"

"Now you have done it! You’ve committed original sin!"

But dad, pleaded Adam, "we didn’t even begin!"

"Not that sin you fool, the one where she ate the fruit.

Away with you both, and yes, go barefoot.

Out of my garden and into the wild

and never look back until she’s with child.

Go forth and multiply, fractions will be next.

By Jesus, it’s Sunday!  It’s time that I rest."